The Third Man is in fact a brilliant succession of dice throws, a borderline counterintuitive combination of disparate elements that somehow come together as if they had been destined to do so. It is a singular object, a fluke, a well-oiled machine, a time capsule item, a novelty hit. There has never been another movie quite like it.
Luc Sante
The Criterion Collection
Blood on the Moon
The "heroes" in Thompson's fiction are those generally discarded by literature and the crime - fiction genre ; itinerant roughnecks, downtrodden salesmen, grifters down on their luck looking for that elusive big break, ingratiating hotel bellboys and dodgy conniving businessmen. His books are populated by outsiders, alcoholics, sexual predators and losers ; violent psychopaths, megalomaniac lawmen, pneumatic bottle-dyed blondes and, of course, guileless innocents led like lambs to a ritual slaughter.
Cigarettes and Alcohol
Charles Waring
2008
Crimetime.co.uk
https://www.crimetime.co.uk/cigarettes-and-alchohol-the-extraordinary-life-of-jim-thompson/
Suffering with style. That's the pithiest description i've come up with to describe film noir. The men and women of this sinister cinematic world are driven by greed, lust, jealousy, and revenge - which leads inexorably to existential torment, soul-crushing despair, and a few last gasping breaths in a rain-soaked gutter. But i'll be damned if these lost souls don't look sensational riding the Hades Express. If you're going straight to hell, you might as well travel with some style to burn.
EDDIE MULLER
image
The Crooked Way
1949
